I had the most unusual experience tonight. Coming home from an epic Easter production at my church, I no more than turned onto my road when I saw a pair of tail lights fly wildly off course to a crunching thud in the ditch behind me.
Not sure what I would find, I got out of my car and ran as fast as I could to the scene. There was just a single car, and I immediately thought, ‘drunk driver’.
The car wasn’t in bad shape. The driver was a dazed looking woman in her 30′s or 40′s. I asked her through the open window if she was all right.
“I’m all right,” she said, with a bit of a slur. “Can you get me out of here?”
“Well,” I replied, “I’ll try.”
I really didn’t have any clue what to do, so I just pushed back the branches and yanked the door open. Then I helped her out of the car. She had blood on her hands, and I asked if she was hurt, but she said it was fine. I flashed my cell at the cuts, and they didn’t look deep, whatever they were from.
Her name was something Jones. I can’t remember the first name, which makes me upset.
I asked her where she had come from, and she said, “Lowell”. That didn’t make sense because she was coming from the other way. But I asked her if she had been partying. “A little,” she replied, guiltily.
The way she tried to walk up the hill and immediately fell on her butt in the brambles confirmed my belief that we had a drunk driving case going.
She begged me many times not to call the police. I told her I might have to; drunk driving is a serious offense and I know several people who have lost close friends or family members to drunk drivers. I’ll never forget my friend Jeffrey playing bass to his brother’s favorite old worship song. His brother used to play the song, “Mighty to Save”, at church until he was killed by a drunk driver. One of the most numbing, hallowed sights I have ever seen is Jeffrey playing bass to that song at church, tears streaming down his face, crying for his brother and picking the bass as hard as he could.
All the same, I didn’t want to get her in trouble. She was a broken person, that much was clear. She told me that she had a one-year-old and a six-year-old. Her husband had left her six years ago. She was struggling with alcohol and so upset because this was her second offense, and she was worried about going to jail and having the kids left with no one to care for them.
I felt strongly she just needed some love. I’ve just been absorbing people around church talking about God’s love over the past year, and I knew that is what this woman needed. So I just grabbed her and gave her a huge hug.
The first thing she said was, “Oh, my God… no one has given me a hug in so long.”
“God told me to give you this hug,” I replied. I think it was true, at least in a roundabout way, right?
“Where did you come from?,” she asked, and literally added, “Are you an angel?”
“I’m just around the corner,” I replied.
It broke my heart that no one has hugged her in so long that it meant that much to her. I ended up holding her there for like five minutes. She just sobbed in my arms.
Mostly, it felt a little bit awkward. In a movie that kind of thing seems to make sense. One character holds another in his arms and there’s just kind of this holy moment where it all feels right. This was more clumsy. I had plenty of time to think thoughts like, “Am I hugging her too long?” and “I wonder if her nose is dripping on my shirt?”
But I knew, deep down, that this was a “holy moment” for her. In a life where she’s been shown so little love, this was a breath of fresh air. It meant a lot to her. And so I kept holding her for quite a while.
Somebody passing by must have called the police, because they showed up. The officers asked a bunch of questions, took my ID and number, and then thanked me and sent me home. And so I went.
I didn’t really get to say goodbye to her. I looked back with regret and I wished I could have done more. Sometimes, though, a hug is all you can do. Maybe that’s all I was sent there for tonight.
I might be called to testify in court, since I was the sole witness of the accident. I’m looking forward to seeing her (whatever her name was) again. Part of you always feels bad for not doing more when these types of things happen. I’d love to be able to help her out more. And I know her kids need it.
Usually, I’m not the guy to say, “nothing is an accident”. Actually, I’m usually the one raising an eyebrow when somebody else says it. But I think God had a hand in what happened tonight. I think I was there to give her that hug.
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